*This blog post is based on experience in scaling a B2B IoT business within a larger enterprise.

The age of the internet of things is well upon us and organizations are working on adopting and adapting business processes and infrastructure to a connected world. While awareness is high, the domain is still considered immature with product and technology standards still evolving. The space is expected to see rapid innovation over the next 4-6 years, with modern technologies emerging across the value chain, but companies cannot afford to wait on the sidelines. They will need to embark on a path fraught with risk and uncertainty, and innovate as they learn more and their vendors and partners learn more.

The advantages and risks of IoT technology are relatively well known. IoT is fundamentally real time analysis and deployment. Consider a smart machine on the manufacturing floor. Beyond remote control, we learn about how the machine is being used, when it is used, how it functions in various situations and this is valuable data to make a better machine. Any issues can be corrected real time. Services can be tailored. Data from the machine can be combined with data from the assembly line or other components/machines to optimize operations.

But driving availability and productivity up comes with its share of unknowns. Security risks through new access points and architectures are higher and new security approaches for simple IoT devices/systems will be needed. Real time, high volume data streaming and analysis is required across device/edge/network, with new data formats, algorithms and platforms needed for analytics. Privacy is an issue – who does the data really belong to? Devices will need management systems for availability, compliance, security, monitoring status/location, diagnostics, reporting etc. Communication network standards and topology are important for range, data rates, bandwidth, power, cost.

Considerations need to be given to device and operating system capabilities and platform capabilities (simple device management or device and data management or sophisticated application management and interoperability with other systems?). There isn’t a single vendor providing all the different capabilities required for an IoT ecosystem to flourish – there are device manufacturers, oem players, platform providers, security providers, network operators and system integrators in the mix.

Now consider the company wanting to design and deploy its IoT strategy. It will need to work with some combination of or all the players mentioned above. Company needs to consider the integration of new systems, standards, API with existing infrastructure. New business processes and applications are needed. Remote assets need to be connected. Integrations need time, budget, talent and senior leadership commitment. All this without any compromises to security, privacy or availability, so that there is no risk to existing revenue.

Enter the traditional B2B salesman that has been selling into the IT department and likely interacting with the Director and possibly the CIO/CISO for larger deployments. The best of them solve for customer outcomes and are a business partner to the customer. From understanding customer’s business strategy to communicating product benefits, the best salesman make magic.

Now multiply those skills and capabilities 2x. That’s what is needed to sell IoT. Relying on a traditional sales team and plan to sell IoT is the shortest road to disaster. Making inroads in IoT is going to usher in a new paradigm in selling capabilities, and companies that solve and plan for sales fit as much as they do product-market fit are the ones that are going to succeed.

Sales Talent: Getting right sales talent to scale an IoT business is difficult and will be expensive. IoT is evolving and technologically intensive. Ecosystems will emerge, battle and evolve. Customer business models will need to adapt to this evolution. Requirements and success factors will vary across industries – healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, infrastructure, retail etc. So, what skills should the sales person have?

Understanding the market and existing ecosystem is a must, which will require a certain degree of technical know-how. Business development skills to work and bring together an integrated solution (across so many players) for the client is a must. Vertical domain knowledge is required. On the soft skills side, sales will need to work with more than just IT and more than just the CIO of the customer. Building relationships across the product and business teams, and senior/C-suite is needed to drive adoption. Ability to charter the client into the unknown and navigate rapid advancements in technology requires a certain level of gumption. Sales needs to be able to drive larger ACV deals.

Wait, there’s more..he/she also needs to be really good at traditional sales. You can’t hire a technical business development guy and teach him to sell. It is perhaps easier to teach the vertically experienced sales guy, about business development.

Sales Process: The traditional sales process will not work for IoT. What was a linear 5 step process of prospecting, connecting, researching, presenting and closing with a customer is now going to turn into a jungle maze of complex relationships with more than the customer. Every ecosystem player (i.e oem, si, network operator etc.) is going to jostle to orchestrate the show. The customer is likely going to need them all, so ignoring a partner may be suicide.

Mapping the sales process starts with mapping the customer’s IoT strategy and mapping the end to end architecture. What changes (products/services) are needed to go from current to future state? What’s the role of each provider? How is the customer buying all the various products/services? How does your product fit/interact/integrate with each provider’s solution/service? Once this is clear, sales process needs to be mapped across the roster of providers. A POC may be required with one, platform testing with another. Internal folks from the product team, or channel sales etc. may need to be leveraged for specific steps. Map every step, in detail.

As the technology and ecosystem continue to morph, sales process will change. Vendors need to be proactive about managing to change and how handoffs/integrations occur across the value chain. As the technology matures, perhaps the customer and an integrated platform provider are only key relationships required, but that maturity is a few years out.

Sales Compensation: Industrial IoT deals will have a long sales cycle. Deals require technical integration and this will not happen without a POC. Getting to a deal across many influencers at the customer and partners/vendors will also push the sales cycle out (9-15 month cycles). So, what should compensation for the sales leader and sales rep look like?

One way to go is the standard 50/50/x% accelerator plan. 50% base, 50% bonus and an additional bonus as a % of every deal. No cap on upside. It is going to be expensive ie. High base/high overall OTE given scarcity of talent, but this is not the area to skimp. The idea of draws and paying on KSOs (key sales objectives) is tempting given longer sales cycles, but sales leaders need to take on the risk of the number and shouldn’t be given a cushion. It should be paid on a number the company is trying to hit. New SaaS companies pay x=25%, and the number goes down over time. IoT deals will likely require a higher % than this, with the number going down over time. This is for the sales leader.

The sales rep is also going to be more expensive than the regular B2B IT sales rep. A similar 50/50/y% accelerator plan works well here. You also want the sales rep to be committed for a longer cycle, hence a fixed bonus for hitting key measurable milestones may also be warranted. Keep the plan simple, the more complicated it is, the faster the rep will leave.

If you get the sales talent and sales process right, you don’t need a lot of hijinks to get sales compensation working.

Sales Resources/ Enablement: As mentioned earlier, IoT sales talent needs to have a mix of sales, technical and business development skills. On the technical side, enablement programs need to train sales (at an appropriate level) on the market, customer strategy/architecture and partner/vendor evolution. On the selling side, managerial coaching on selling competencies and selling behavior is still critical. In addition, emphasis is needed on building communication and leadership skills to guide/partner with the customer (all the way from C-suite to line leader) on a transformation journey.

Structuring and deploying a sales team is hard and essential to get right in any business, more so in the IoT space. Founders and business leaders spend enormous time, talent, money on getting product-market fit right, and then rely on same old B2B sales strategy to turn their venture into a winner. The challenges and rewards of this market call for a smarter sales approach.

If technology companies deliver on the promise of Artificial Intelligence over the next 3-5 years, sales and sales operations teams, from savvy mid-size cos. to frumpy enterprises, will cross the gates of next gen transformation.

Where is AI is playing a role today in sales ?

AI is changing lead generation and qualification. Reliance on intuition, manual data crunching and building manual models is going down. Instead, AI does the work for you. Customer profiles, interactions and media are all intelligently analyzed to provide an uber prospective customer list. Not only that, AI can tell you what products and services fit which customer.

Moving prospective customers down the sales funnel is also changing. Automatic lead scoring is moving to intelligent lead scoring based on customer’s engagement with various assets. Customers are already doing nearly 60-70% of their research before engaging with the seller. Now, thanks to AI, you can know exactly when the customer has reached that stage. Trigger events can be tough to nail down, and vary across customer types. Now AI can tell you clearly what opportunities are there and how they should be approached to move sales along. Then of course, there are the machines doing all the lead warming (ex: Conversica).

Customer’s buying patterns, and their experience with support and services is another area where AI is a game-changer. Again, letting machines do the work for post sales conversations is one thing. Taking all those interactions, mashing it with other data and passing it thorough an intelligent platform, lets salespeople predict buying/service/resell/upsell patterns and anticipate needs and wants of customers in advance. AI also means more real time feedback and support, not waiting days for some analysis to be completed.

Then of course there is the CRM platform. We are moving past using CRM as a data entry and recording tool to enable business forecast and sales management. You have smart assistants (ex: Tact) that automates admin work. Then there is intelligence being built into the platform (Einstein anyone?) to enable salespeople take the right decisions at the right time.

What does this mean for sales roles?

Recent McKinsey research posited that 40% of sales jobs will be automated by 2020. However, this does not mean that sales is dying. What you have instead is a data and smart assistant armed, emotionally astute, sales rep who can focus on doing what he is best at – driving a deep and intense engagement/relationship with the customer. Sales managers have an even bigger role to play in understanding and then using available technology to coach and scale their reps’ capabilities.

What does this mean for sales operations?

Aha, here is where we are going see evolution very quickly.

Sales Operations is already moving from tactical to strategic, and now must quickly move to adapting and embracing technology to enable sales scale. This means change in the way sales operations invests, operates and staffs.

Roles: Roles in sales operations will absolutely get more strategic and more technical. Today’s sales operations teams have a mix of tactical and strategic folks. The tactical roles (reporting, tool administration etc.) will go away with automation and rise of the smart sales assistant. Successful sales operations teams will be as much about asking the right questions, understanding technology, building the quickest path to business goals using intelligent data, and driving seamless execution.

This will lead to new roles in sales operations teams around data management for smart systems, business development (for working with AI technology cos), and “AI sales support roles” that support sales and sales managers with the right planning and execution strategy.

Perhaps all of sales operations itself will move into a centralized AI based operations team, to align go to market strategy and operations from marketing to sales to customer success.

Talent: Traditional tactical and planning skills are just not going to cut it for a job in sales operations in an AI world. The team will have to focus on being strategic to deliver value to sales. Across the spectrum, folks will have to become technology savvy. From architecting the platform, to interpreting results and patterns for sales enablement, you must understand the data, and context, parameters and boundaries of technology to ensure its usefulness.

Sales Planning and Forecasting: This is an area already seeing significant improvement. There are companies already incorporating AI so forecast can be predicted more accurately based on multitudes of data, patterns and machine intelligence. Forecasts can be segmented accurately by product and customer. Accurate forecasting is a huge strategic advantage.

AI based forecasting will also drive other benefits – reduction of enormous time sucked in a manual forecasting approach, and better alignment among teams using a “more science than manager gut” approach. Sales managers will be armed with accurate data to drive meaningful conversations. Forecasting and planning process and tools will continue to get more sophisticated.

Tools: AI based tools for sales is seeing an explosion. More than $400 million venture money has gone into companies building better sales tech products, in 2015/16. Conversica, Tact, Takt, Aviso, Chorus, Gong to name a few. Companies will need to deploy these tools to be competitive. It will fall to Sales Operations to evaluate and deploy the predictive tools that align with sales goals. Tool basics like data sources, useful patterns and predictions, integration with existing workflows and tools, personalized models, and ability to scale will need to be evaluated, before the tool can be successfully commissioned.

Sales Enablement: Aspects of sales enablement including sales compensation will become simpler to implement, with fewer sales roles and reliable data applied. On the other hand, driving adoption in sales for new AI based technologies will come with its own challenges and renewed emphasis on formal change management programs. Enablement programs will also need to be more technical/product driven and focused on superior selling competencies/skills and negotiation in a data driven environment, as sales looks to build deep relationships with customers.

The near future holds a lot of promise, and I am really excited to see sales operations at the intersection of the intelligent and traditional. Sales Opns is at the cusp of a transformation that puts the function on an even more influential path to scaling the business. The teams that succeed will be the ones that plan for this challenge..intelligently (no pun intended)

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​The role of Sales Operations is (thankfully) elevating. From driving operational optimization, sales operations is increasingly taking the “thought partner to sales” role. It’s moving from support to symbiosis. A few years back, the principal role of sales opns was to ensure tool function, perform administrative tasks and publish reports. A good sales operations function today does so much more. They work with sales to build short and long term sales strategy, articulate sales process, coach reps, hold sales management accountable, provide optimized sales support and drive technology adoption for ease of business.

The function itself is embedded in Sales (mostly) but sometimes in a central Operations or Finance function. The motivations and ambitions of the parent group also influence the role of Sales Operations. There is no right or wrong way to place the function in a company. It depends on the company strategy, company culture and other factors. But, there is a right way for the VP of Sales Operations to orchestrate the team’s relationship with sales. The right or wrong hire, at the leadership helm, means sales operations plays anything from watchdog to administrative assistant to strategic partner.

Who makes for a good VP of Sales Operations? We are solving for the strategic partner to sales. She needs skills and capabilities that are in demand for a senior leadership role – envision market and technology future, understand business trends, partner with teams internally and externally. She needs to appreciate and build a team skilled in both strategy/analysis and process/operational details. She needs political savvy to advocate for sales with the rest of the organization while having the courage to hold the VP of Sales accountable for his number.

I was reading Jason Lemkin’s old blog post on “10 Great Questions to Ask a VP of Sales in an Interview” and I got to thinking what would be 10 great questions I would ask a VP of Sales Opns if I were hiring one. This list is not exhaustive, of course you must test for industry/company fit and personality/ emotional intelligence etc. Some of these questions don’t have definite answers, but if you don’t garner logical thinking in the answer or worse, hear an answer that seems too good to be true or even worse, no answer move on.

Where do you think this business is going in the next couple of years? What market trends are most critical? - tells you if they have spent time understanding the company, market and what customer pain they are dealing with.

How do you think sales strategy should evolve as the business evolves? Markets/Partners we should expand into? Where should sales spend its money? - tells you if they understand and can build sales strategy. Tells you also if they are capable of proactively building a sales process for your business.

What do they envision as the structure of Sales Operations? How do they expect it to evolve as the company grows? – tells you if they know where to focus based on revenue stage of the company, where sales support is needed.

What kind of team talent is needed as you build and evolve the sales operations team? How have you built your teams in the past? – tells you if they recognize the mix of strategic and tactical folks needed as the sales team scales, and know how to build a good team.

How are you going to set up your team to be the voice of reason to sales? – tells you if they are thinking about how their team will handle myriad requests from sales, without damaging the relationship.

Which functions are you going to build relationships with? How are you going to drive cross-functional support for sales? – tells you if they understand how critical interlock with departments such as Marketing, Customer Success, Product etc. are to sales. Also tells you if they understand the bargaining/negotiation and education needed to drive cross-functional collaboration.

What’s your view on sales tools/technology enabling sales? In which ones would you invest budget and time now, which ones in a year? – tells you how abreast of technology they are to improve sales productivity, and if they understand what’s critical now vs. later.

What are your priorities for the first 90 days? First year? – tells you how they are plotting the course. Are they going to try to go after everything and drown, or can they plot a logical, realistic path forward? Can they tie it back to what they are really good at doing?

I/The VP of Sales am/is on track to miss his numbers this quarter. Or what if the biggest deal in the history of the company is about to be lost. What is your plan? – tells you if they are analytical and can think of multiple factors that impact sales and how to rectify it/them.

How do you drive change in the organization? What if the company pivoted direction in strategy/customer/product and sales has to adapt? What’s your plan? – tells you if they can fail fast and fail forward.

Bonus question: Why do you really want the job? – tells you how authentic they are, if they can articulate how the business strategy/responsibilities tie back to outcomes they can drive, their values/passion etc.​The right VP of Sales Operations makes a critical difference to the charter of the Sales Operations team and its reputation/effectiveness both inside the company and with external stakeholders. Choose wisely!

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Much has been said and written about the benefits of a mid-career break. Born out of necessity and at other times will, a mid-career break can be extremely beneficial. More common is the notion however that career breaks are career suicides, especially for women.

​A somewhat dated study found that only 40% of qualified women return to work, and when they did a quarter take pay cuts, part time roles, fewer management responsibilities etc. A newer study among HBS women alumni found that women aren’t really opting out or ratcheting back voluntarily, as much as they are being indirectly forced to, because of unfulfilling roles and stalling careers. To break or not to break, that is the question.

A few years back a couple of folks I knew well passed away. One was my husband’s close friend. Another was a cousin. Both dropped dead, quite literally, of a heart attack. One collapsed in his driveway and another in his kitchen. Both were 36. The events, as sad and depressing as they were, hit close to home and served as a reminder to not take life for granted and to live each day to the fullest. Life lessons apart, the incidents also stirred up nascent entrepreneur feelings and parental instincts in both my husband and me.

I spent hours researching the net about mid-career breaks. No one needed to sell me on the benefits, but I was genuinely anxious about what such a break would mean for my career. Would I have to settle for a lower paying job, a lower title, fewer responsibilities? How do you truly utilize such a break to your advantage? The case for organizations to better structure their culture and policies to support women on breaks is one in progress. Till such time as we see the changes well rooted in organizations, the burden is on women to make well informed and calculated decisions on taking and managing a career break.​

From the counsel of many senior/high achieving women (who very graciously imparted their wisdom and donated their time), there are a few key considerations when evaluating a break.

Financial freedom: By far, this is the most critical factor to consider when taking a break. Life still needs to happen on a break and if you don’t have the money don’t take the break. The tentacles of financial stress creep into the even the most well intentioned plans and puts them in disarray. If you aren’t financially comfortable maintaining your chosen lifestyle for the duration of your break, you end up desperate and settling for less on your path back into the workforce. That beats the purpose of a break.

If you are intent on taking the break, plan carefully to ensure financial comfort during the break. If a change in lifestyle is needed to accommodate it, make it very consciously. Constantly regretting giving up the premium medical insurance plan does nothing to put you in the right frame of mind to plan forward. Build a buffer – if you plan to take a break for six months, ensure financial comfort for nine. Good jobs take longer to find, products take longer to build and startups take longer to incubate than expected. So, plan for it.

Management seniority: The higher up you are, the easier it is to take a break without your career derailing. I talked to a few VP this, Sr. Director that who comfortably took a few months or more off to explore, and came charging back where they had left off or even ahead. Meanwhile analysts and managers were finding it difficult to get back, and if they did, were compromising with lower pay or fewer responsibilities.

Senior women have already proven themselves in their careers and built their credibility. So, they don’t have to put as much effort into explaining their break. Life happens, everyone understands that. It is brutally less forgiving earlier or lower in the career track. Senior women also have the experience and serious chops to parley their break into a story that ties in better with their career goals. Better access to resources outside work. Better volunteer opportunities. Better networks. These aspects are critical on a break. Perhaps consider pushing out taking the break after the next promotion, if career advancement is a desire.

Solve for future career outcomes: A break is a wonderful time to evaluate what you want out of life and a career. If you have taken the break to escape an unfulfilling role or a stalled career, now is the time for introspection. A stress-free state of mind away from the 9-5 is truly a blessing and a terrific opportunity to fire up the creativity kilns. Understand what you want from your career and use the break to start preparing for it.

If it’s the next management level you want, understand what it takes to get there and how you can creatively get there off the beaten path. If it’s a change in career function, understand what steps can be taken to get there. It’s impossible to do this well in the confines of your home, so build and keep your network active. Shore up your knowledge base – read, attend workshops, pursue meaningful consulting opportunities that align with your goal. Build your brand – tweet, write blogs, contribute/volunteer with professional societies. Keep moving forward so you have the right story to tell. Use judgement to decide the length of your break.

Disrupt Yourself: Whitney Johnson’s best seller “Disrupt Yourself” provides context and prescription for pursuing disruptive innovation i.e. pursuing a non-traditional path to career success and fulfillment. What better time than a break to evaluate if and how to plan your disruption strategy. Like the foundations of a successful business, step one is evaluating disruptive strengths one can offer to meet needs more effectively. Step two involves careful introspection to build a somewhat fluid plan, consciously considering various paths (even stepping backwards) to go after a larger outcome. The key is to stay motivated and dedicated through the break to stay on the disruption journey.

Have fun: The best part of a break is the flexibility and time it affords you to pursue interests and passion. Be it spending time with kids/family, taking art classes, volunteering at the shelter or travelling, now is the time to do it. A break is relaxing, builds perspective and makes you more aware of your priorities and boundaries. Exploit that to the fullest.

One of the things that’s so hard about getting back from break is the need to give up many treasured activities. Yes, there’s never going to be time to pursue all the fun things but you can continue to pursue an activity or two albeit at a lower frequency. Plan your time carefully to make space for these. Things. It will remind you of a happy time in your life and keep you fulfilled. A break is also a time to inculcate good habits that can carry you through your personal and professional life. For example, mindfulness and exercise (even for a few minutes) are good habits to start on a break to incorporate in daily or weekly routines.

A break can be just the right medicine the doctor ordered. It is a privilege and a gift and should be treated as such. A break calls for a different kind of work, more fun kind of work. One woman I spoke with went back, with a promotion to Chief Legal Counsel of a Fortune 500 company, after a four-month break. Another went on to start a very successful financial consultancy business after a year’s break. Still another launched a non-profit after three months off. All planned their breaks carefully and had a wonderful time on their breaks.

It can be done, so aspire higher!

Of course, all the above applies only if you want to ensure your break doesn’t end up causing an irreparable dent in your career. If you want to hang up your boots for good, go forth and vacation!

CreditsPamela Stone’s research on women opting out of the workforce can be found here and hereWhitney Johnson’s book on Disrupt Yourself (which makes for a fascinating read)Here is an insanely good article on becoming insanely well-connected.

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Meeting people is an essence of life – call it networking if you will, the most fruitful way forward is from connecting with others. Sometimes for counsel, sometimes to hear and discuss another perspective, sometimes to practice pitching an idea, sometimes for a job/an engagement, and sometimes it’s the start of an undefined exploration.

I reach out to people actively, more so during times of transition. I love meeting people. Not the “happy hour type, don’t know random folks, I feel like wallpaper” type of meetings. But all game for 1-1s. Pre-meeting is always a bit discombobulating and post-meeting is, in most cases, a high. My meetings usually lasted a good hour to 90mts. Even when the meeting invitation said 30mts, it invariably stretched to the telltale hour. The longer it went, the better the connection I thought I was making with my attendee.

A couple of years back, I reached out to a contact (let’s call him Mr. X) who was introduced to me through a friend. Mr. X had been running sales workshops for startups and I wanted to meet him. I was intrigued by some of his work and wanted to learn more about how he got from A to B in his career. Perhaps it was a path I wanted for myself. I was plenty excited and reached out after a warm introduction and offered to take him to coffee for 20mts. He promptly responded with a link to set up exactly a 20 minute meeting (I got what I asked for!) and a link to an article “Never Ask a Busy Executive Out to Lunch.”

I was mortified. And annoyed as heck. First I had asked to meet for coffee, right next to his office or bring coffee to his office. Second, what’s wrong with lunch when people need to eat? I don’t completely buy into banning lunches as part of networking, but I had to admit that there was a lot of truth to the article. Lunches are time sucks and folks who have a lot going on usually don’t have that kind of time to spend on someone they have been introduced to, no matter how much they want to help.The meeting with Mr. X was fruitful. It was my most productive meeting yet. And Mr. X turned out to be one of my best connections. He introduced me to other people, gave me access to valuable resources and I learned what I wanted to from him. It took exactly 20mts.

I became and still am a fan of 20 minute meetings. Especially when meeting new people. And, in many cases, people you already know. It may not work for some situations, but often it’s enough for 1-1s, status updates etc. It is efficiency at its best and good karma all around. I never believed it could work, but they do. Just requires a bit of thought to make it successful.

What did I learn?

Start and end on time: Set expectations to start and end meetings on time. Beyond being respectful of people’s time, really sticking to 20mts trains people to adapt the right mindset. There is a sense of urgency and purpose in attendees. People are more focused, more aware of every passing minute to get things done. Ever noticed focus and attention in game show participants racing against the clock? This is the same. Knowing that the meeting is only going to last 20mts forces everyone to prepare beforehand, be it reading material or considering their goals for the meeting.

Know exactly what you are after: Spend a few minutes thinking carefully about what outcome you are after from the meeting. It can’t be “simply make a connection”. Such meetings have a way of meandering into frustration land for both parties. You must be clear about what you want to learn/what message you want to convey. Distil it to two key items. Just two. What are the two most important things that this person can tell you that you cannot glean from anyone or anywhere else? Relegate less important items for a future follow-up or for a quick email follow-up.

My goals for the meeting with Mr. X were clear – based on his experience did he think there was a market for a certain service, what are a couple of recommendations/counsel he has for me as next steps based on what my goals are? I could have asked him about how he got where he did, his journey etc. but figured my life situation is not the same as his so didn’t want to spend the time on the lead up.

Share a common experience: Not all conversations call for this, but take the opportunity at the beginning of the call to bring some human element into the conversation. It’s not all about the agenda and questions and action items. It only takes a minute or two and makes the rest of the conversation go smoothly. I am not referring to chatting about the weather or scores from the ball game (folks can look up stats on websites. I have yet to see a discussion on humidity levels lead to camaraderie).

Instead, share an experience tied to the meeting agenda that helps you connect to the meeting attendee. For example, when I reached out to Mr. X, I wanted to learn more about his consulting practice. At the outset of the call I asked him what made him switch from a lucrative paying job to consulting. He mentioned wanting to spend more time with kids. I shared a crazy experience I had during work that gave me a scare about my children, he had had something similar happen. Boom! We connected!

Be bold: There’s only 20mts, so ask what you need to, straight up. There might not be another chance to meet this person. If you let this opportunity go, the question or valuable opinion may be moot by the next meeting. So, let your voice be heard. Asking bold questions is great for credibility and building self-confidence. Meeting attendees will thank you for getting straight to the point. Everyone has important things to do and places to be. Same applies to making decisions. Prior preparation is key. But given a limited time window, people are more willing to push the envelope and make decisions. Take advantage!

Act: Spend the last few minutes of the meeting summarizing key aspects and building next steps to get live commitment/support. Earnestness during the meeting often translates to earnestness post meeting. People get to action items faster, likely within a few hours or a day. On my call with Mr. X, I asked to be introduced specifically to another person, asked for notes from a workshop, asked for a book recommendation and asked for a collated list of specific contacts. I had everything in 24hrs. 20mts forces people into high intensity mode and the same intensity often translates to acting on action items. Goes with the territory but be nice, offer to help and keep up your end of the action item list as well.

Asking someone for only 20mts of their time makes it more likely that they show up to the meeting. Most people have 20mts to spare in the day. But if you let it drag on to 45mts, an hour or longer, the goodwill evaporates quickly. So, plan, and show up with your focused self for those 20mts. No calls, no texting, no email. Over time, navigating short intense meetings also hones your skill in efficiently and effectively making people stay on course, thinking on the fly and quite simply getting things done. Its 20mts that pays for itself in many ways.​Less time in meetings = Freedom! Try it!

CreditsYou can find one perspective on asking new connections to lunch here

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Once a company scales (read 250-500M+ revenue), planning and executing even the most well thought out sales strategy often descends into organized chaos. I say organized because there are specific teams doing specific things, marching towards specific goals. I say chaos because teams are driving towards different goals, often completely out of lockstep.

Sales strategy is not that hard to come up with –conversations, analysis, a solid framework and voila you have a strategy to start with (Ok, it’s harder than that) but coming up with the strategy is 30% work, executing against it is 70% work. And this is where large enterprises by nature of bigger teams, more teams etc. trip up.

Consider some of the major reasons why:

Reliance on one and done sales strategy/process – Sales teams (selling teams and operations) come up with a sales strategy/process as the business is scaling and then it’s done. Taking frequent stock of the changing marketplace in terms of buyer’s preferences and influences from various channels doesn’t happen as often as it should.

Most larger companies think about sales process during annual planning, when new roles, compensation plans, enablement programs must be built/modified. Evaluating sales process starts with right intent, but with complicated operational systems to deal with, slips in priority.

Building a detailed sales process is different from building a sales strategy. Understanding product market fit and which customers to sell to is one thing, understanding the buyers journey is harder.

Now add the customer segments you are going after, and industries. You must spend time with the customer. How many annual planning events involve direct conversations with customers?​Good sales reps figure it out but this is not scalable. The ecosystem (compensation, tools, resources, enablement) must align.

Bad Data – Ay caramba! Where do I start with this one? Data is powerful, but bad data is a pain. As teams grow and admins change, system foundation and data integrity is compromised. Rules weaken. Discipline deteriorates. Soon we have 10 name variations of the same customer account. Activity data dwindles. Historical data disappears. Then there are various systems that don’t talk to each other – sales system of record is different in finance and different in sales. How do you tie this data together? What’s most insidious is all this data analysis that happens in different departments. Every team relies on and believes their own data. It’s just crazy talk that point on.

Poor talent fit to roles - Look at the job responsibilities and skills required in the job posting. Can one person really do it all? In the land of budget cuts, doing more with less is the norm but it does not work. More gets done but it’s of mediocre quality. Then there is the lack of understanding of what skills/roles are required in a function. Multiple folks doing the same thing in multiple functions. Formulating sales strategy and executing it requires a mix of strategic and tactical folks in sales opns, most are set up with the latter.

Misaligned functions – this is another doozy. There is minimal meaningful communication outside of annual planning time (unless there is a budget issue god forbid), and then come annual planning time, functions come together to sing kumbaya. Only everyone forgot to agree to the pitch and tone in advance. Sales finds out about product priorities, IT can’t get a new system ready to go to handle a new channel, finance doesn’t have money for an incentive program to go after a new customer segment and annual planning time is usually too late to be able to do anything about it.

Poor decision making skills – One of the biggest drivers of a successful sales plan is the quality of leadership involved – not just the sales leader, but the sales opns leader, marketing leader, customer success leader, finance leader…COO in some cases. Making the right decisions and making decisions on-time seems to be a skill relegated to a chosen few, and those few don’t seem to hang around in large enterprises for long. Folks are smart but there’s so much analysis paralysis, quota pressure, system complications, political stuff to deal with, that decisions seem to take forever.

Death by meetings – This is a close cousin of the poor decision making skills cause. It boggles the mind as to the number of meetings and the number of attendees it takes to review items, ask questions, get the ball rolling, make decisions etc. A friend who joined a large company via an acquisition said he once attended an entire day workshop to determine the presentation format for a sales enablement manual, and there were 42 ppl in the room from all corners of the world. Go diversity! How is any sales strategy execution supposed to get done on time?

There are other issues I know I am missing. These issues aren’t just pertaining to sales strategy. Several strategic programs seem to suffer from the same issues. However, the impact from a poorly executed sales strategy is far reaching -> multiply $ left on the table * # of reps. I get it, large enterprises by nature of their size and reasons above are set up to be inefficient. But, I’ve seen some large companies do this well, and there are many case studies of companies executing sales strategy well.

What did they get right?

Strong sales/operations leader – By far this is the most critical “thing to have” to get sales strategy execution done. Strategic thinking, asking the right questions, building right relationships with other functional leaders, setting the right culture, guiding structured process and decision making, structuring the team, structuring the systems, conflict management, hiring well – a lot hinges on a strong sales operations leader. Given all the pressure from sales and from other functional leaders, a sales operations leader’s job is not easy. A mediocre leader runs around with his hair on fire and relies on micromanaging down the chain. This rarely works. As cliched as it sounds, a good leader is in tune with market/business/customer needs, enables a formidable team, strategically plans (not just once a year, but on an ongoing basis) and walks the talk. Easier said than done.

Right technology – Gone are the days of spreadsheets and backward looking metrics. Technology for sales cycle i.e. sales stack is exploding. Investment in sales technology tools is a must to drive productivity – not only of the sales team but sales opns and other functions as well. This doesn’t mean you implement every tool under the sun. Understanding the sales process clearly and areas for productivity improvement in sales opns is money. (ex: Clari, Insightsquared, Join.me, 6sense, Gainsight, Slack etc. all great tools to leverage if there is a fit) It frees up time and mindshare to get impactful work done.

Consistent communication – This is another area that large companies do poorly, but its critical in large organizations. There is so much noise from so much going on that even the best initiatives and projects fail when people just don’t get it. Communication strategy through emails and newsletter and conference meetings does not mean it is being understood. Yes, it’s needed but more important is to keep the message around strategy and execution simple and consistent.

Investment in people: You need people to execute, and you need to enable them to do it. Some must do’s for sales/operations leaders: Hiring right talent (thinkers for strategy, doers for execution) is important. Telling people (clearly) what decisions and actions they are responsible for is important. Telling good folks the impact of their decisions is important. Encouraging information flow is important. Walking the talk and sharing information freely is important. Staying ahead of the planning process and sharing information/collaboration across functions top to bottom is important.

What have I missed?

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Last time I checked, cybersecurity jobs were going unfilled, with stats indicating that there are two jobs for every candidate. Cybersecurity sales is no different. Add the lack in talent to double digit attrition rates, and companies are dealing with lost revenue opportunity and a costly hiring process. It is imperative to hire the right sales rep and some are a better fit for the cybersecurity industry.

Sales managers look for a few things when hiring reps: sales experience in the industry, experience in similar sized companies, sales experience with customers in the target market, clear indicators of “success” from the past (including quota attainment, Club attendance etc.) and strength of network and relationships. Then there are well recognized traits: hunter mentality/ drive, charisma, intelligence, empathy, resilience and confidence. Finally, they look for “feel good” factor. After all, we want to work with folks we like and remind us of ourselves.

What's really different about cybersecurity sales?

Sounds thorough but the cybersecurity industry warrants more. It took conversations with 48 cybersecurity sales reps and correlating their success (quota/pipeline), behaviors (tracking level and frequency of customer engagement, strength of internal and external network) and competencies (via standardized testing) to understand what set the best ones apart. Let me explain.

Think about selling ERP and selling cybersecurity. Both sold into the IT department, the former all the way to a CIO and the latter to CIO/CISO. Selling ERP is hard but there is a predictable output (if you install x->a,b,c,d happens) and predictable path and tasks to get to the output. Studying the customer’s business and business process in detail, and you can clearly articulate how your product can solve customer pain. You are going where other customers and vendors have tread before, so likely there are well articulated answers to “If-then” scenarios. There is a method to the madness.

Cybersecurity is nebulous, more difficult to wrap your brain around. There are new threats and sophisticated attacks every day. The assessment of impact of these threats on business and assets is a learning process. Attacks creep up and blow up in unexpected ways. AI and cognitive computing are going to lead to yet unknown cyberattacks. There is limited budget and limited talent/resources to deploy against cybersecurity attacks – against who and what is most critical to protect? Against insider threats? Against third party attacks? Protect ERP systems? Business Applications? Customer/Corporate/Email/Order Data? What to prioritize? And protection is not foolproof, the puck is moving and all you can really do is skate to it but never catch it.

So, what's different about the good reps?

The best sales reps are the ones who recognize that uncertainty is the very nature of the industry, and are very comfortable with it. This is not a job for the sales rep who adopts a structured and rigid selling approach. Even the industrious ones who study the industry and customer well and plan for scenarios eventually trip up. They encounter a never seen before attack or customer problem, and are not able to coach the customer through the quandary. This is not to say that diligence and a plan is not important, and selling is improv. A good cybersecurity sales rep recognizes and reacts proactively to situations not in the playbook. He has reached zen state with chaos.

Can you teach this to a rep or do you hire for it? Given priorities for sales enablement in an environment of constantly shrinking budgets, I proffer that it is easier to hire for these traits.

Follow all the other testing procedures you must – experience fit, company/culture fit, competency fit etc. – but also ask questions around comfort with uncertainty. How often do they try something new? Do they read widely and enjoy multiple experiences? (makes you more perceptive to oncoming change) What’s reaction time and course of action when they mess up badly? What do they expect worst case scenario with a customer (in this industry) to be and how would they recover? Do they sound unabashed about failures? How do they cope with substantial changes (in life)? Wanting to win in sports aka competitiveness is one thing, it’s almost another to risk everything you own/family/kids for a dream. You get the idea!​You might contend that high attainment in the cybersecurity industry is proof enough of a sales rep capability. That may well be so. But, the rep could have been handed accounts built by someone else. Quota accuracy may have slipped under the radar. Or it could be a large customer already entrenched in the product. Is account maintenance enough? Or are you looking for a hunter? Moreover, there are not enough good cybersecurity sales reps to go around (remember talent shortage?). You will have to hire from other industries.

In that case, evaluate if it is easier to train a new rep on product/technical know-how, selling behaviors or for innate traits required to execute sales tasks in the cybersecurity industry.

CreditsCybersecurity employment statsPractical selling tips from a CISOGood article on best ways to hire salespeople can be found here

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Structure and data make sales compensation a straightforward tool to motivate sales. If you understand the business and business goals (are you after growth or profit? do you want to acquire or retain customers?), and leverage data (benchmarks and predictive models), then you can build a robust compensation plan. It is more science than art.

Some attributes of compensation plans that are important for it to succeed are: pay for performance philosophy (how much and how steep is the difference in pay from low to high performers), performance targets (what % of your sales team do you want to reach 100% performance) and alignment to outcomes you are trying to drive by sales role. Simple plans and plans which pay as close to the performance event as possible always work well.

In addition, two critical execution metrics that are imperative for a sales plan to work are: communication and adherence.

What do I mean?

Lesson 1: Keep thy rep in the know

I learnt my first lesson the hard way. Compensation plans usually get structured around annual planning time. The sales strategy and sales priorities and process are clear, and you have optics into the sales roles you need and what outcomes you need them to drive. We then proceeded to structure the compensation plan accordingly, aligned to good attributes, and backed with feedback we received through a survey and every conceivable form of data analysis (including monte carlo curves for payouts etc.). The plans were built with cross-functional core team - couple of sales reps and representatives from finance, HR, product, business units etc. Result was a well thought out plan that had the CFO and Sales leaders stamp of approval. Then we rolled out the plans with all the communication material to go with it. It bombed!

Reps had a hundred questions and generally had a visceral reaction to plans that changed, both when payout criteria had altered and payout had dipped. No one had read the communication materials that explained articulately why the plans needed to change. Sales managers appeared as clueless as reps. Sales leaders soon backpedaled on approvals and asked for more review. This was a well thought out structured process – how did we get it so wrong?

It took many 1-1 conversations to peel the onion. No one disputed that the new plan was the right one to implement, for the results we were trying to drive as company. But nearly everyone was affronted that they had no input/ their voice wasn’t heard (a blind survey didn’t cut it) and their fate was being decided by a group of leaders that did not live and breathe selling all day.

The next time when a new plan needed to launch for a new line of business, we instituted a much more collaborative and communicative process with sales. Yes, there was the initial survey. As plans were getting structured, there were a series of meetings with each region. It was a slow dance – compensation explaining the problem that needed to be addressed and proposing an initial solution, sales providing their feedback and calling out considerations we had missed and suggestions to improve the plans. We were firm and disciplined that the plans would not be altered just to ensure rep payout, and sales got the message. The process was slow, but it was inclusive and we heard less rumbling. Sales reps, managers and leaders alike were supportive of the new plans even when payout terms and values differed from expectations.

An inclusive process is hard to scale when you have 1000s of reps across geographies. Tools available today should help – wiki pages, blogs on shared sites and webinars with explanations allowing for comments and replying to comments (so people feel that their voice is heard), slack channels and utilizing the feedback. Cascading the message top to bottom also helps, reps like to hear from managers who they trust more than a centralized function. Recruit sales champions who buy into the plan and can help build support.

Lesson 2: Stick to the plan

This is a hard one. Consider the situation: Plans and Quotas are rolled out with the best of intentions at the beginning of the planning cycle. Six months down the road, reps aren’t making their numbers. Reps start grumbling about quotas being set too high, that plans are not aligned and customer preferences have shifted. Attrition goes up and pressure mounts on sales leaders. They must make their numbers the following quarter and for the year, and you can’t do that without people in their seats. Hiring and enabling a new sales rep takes time. Pressure mounts on sales operations/sales finance to adjust the quotas down. Or launch a broad spiff that for all purposes works the same way as a quota reduction.

The reverse is also true. Quotas are set low at the beginning of the year and finance sees red when more reps than target beat their numbers. Finance then pushes for a mid-year quota increase.

Mid-year quota changes are generally very difficult to roll out in large enterprises. The systems and process required to roll quotas out takes time (read months sometimes) and requires massive coordination between sales opns, finance, IT and other teams. Even if you could pull it off in a timely manner in systems, should it be done?

I faced the situation where not enough reps were making quota. After much debate, a broad spiff was launched that effectively killed a % of quota. What I learnt was that mid-year quota adjustments do a stellar job in demotivating reps.

When quotas are adjusted up, every rep is demotivated. Reps feel penalized for no fault of theirs, and lose faith in the system and process. When quotas are adjusted down/broad spiff is initiated, the high performing reps (the ones you want to keep motivated) believe their achievement is now diminished because everyone does well. As for the rest of the reps, it sets a mentality of expecting favorable change when things get tough, and now they don’t need to work as hard anymore. This is a losing proposition for the company.​It is best to stick to the plan and savvy sales leaders do plan and manage, not just for the short term but beyond 90 days as well. In situations that call for better rep performance, other motivating techniques than adjusting compensation plans may work better. Research has shown that every group of sales people – the laggards, the core performers and stars are each motivated by varied factors, many of which are non-monetary. Competitive lists and more frequent bonus payouts motivate laggards, non-monetary prizes work for core performers and stars, the more the number of prizes the more the motivation to win.

Credits Research on what really works in motivating salespeople can be accessed here

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Data is everywhere and being used more than ever in sales hiring and coaching. CRM data is as critical to running the business and understanding customers, as it is for sales managers to coach their teams. Standard KPIs such as quota achieved, conversion rates, pipeline stats, activity monitors form the basis of what should be mandated daily or weekly check-ins between manager and rep. However, these KPIs only go so far.

While some KPIs do provide a backward-looking snapshot of a salesperson’s performance, they do nothing to help the salesperson or manager understand the everyday behaviors that are responsible for impressive results. KPIs are also only as good as the data that goes into the measuring tool. If a rep is doing a poor job of documenting all customer activity in CRM, then the manager is left with little more than anecdotal evidence in understanding rep behavior and areas for improvement.

McKinsey’s research shows some surprising sales performance variations among sales teams. Sales rep performance in similar districts varies by a factor of three between top and bottom quartile, adjusted for tenure. Inside sales, where turnover is higher than reps, shows performance variance as a factor of two. Traditional KPIs don’t fully explain the variation even when controlled for the right coaching and incentive programs in place.

Enter people analytics..

aka “Moneyball of human resources” to the rescue. People analytics is well entrenched big data technology that draws on aggregated and anonymized data from email, calendar, social media and other datasets to help managers and executives understand how time is invested, and if it’s paying off with increased sales. Put simply, the data helps managers recognize why some employees are not meeting their KPIs and how best to coach them towards improvement. It enables predicting outcomes and improving productivity, allowing teams to course-correct before results come in.

As an example of people analytics in play (at company X), we saw large variation in rep performance that CRM data and standard KPIs didn’t explain. We first needed to understand data that would explain the behavior and then build an appropriate coaching/enablement program to uplift the lower performing reps.

We turned to Volometrix (now part of Microsoft’s Delve Analytics) to work with us. VoloMetrix extracts and analyzes anonymized, aggregated header-level data from email and calendar systems (Information such as who mails were sent to, time in meetings and with customers etc. are examples of data collected) This is correlated to CRM data and quota attainment to understand behaviors and actions that are highly predictive of sales outcomes. Analysis done along two dimensions:

Understanding salesperson effectiveness: Data used to profile exactly what specific performers do differently ex: what salespeople who made it to Club do? Data includes hours spent per week with customers, network breadth and depth (both with customers and internal), accounts contacted per week etc. This enables both creating and tracking to benchmarks.

Understanding account coverage: Data used to understand how well customer engagement is done including # of customers deeply engaged per month, # of account C-level executives contacted etc.

What do top salespeople do differently?

Analysis (data analyzed for sales team from the Americas geography over six months) led to the understanding that top salespeople:

Spend nearly 2X more time with customers and engage with senior level executives in the customer organization.

Network extensively with multiple departments within the company especially product management.

Spend 1.5X more time with their managers and senior sales executives in 1-1s getting deal support, advice and coaching.

This is consistent with analysis Volometrix has conducted with other client data sets, but company specific data was needed to support the hypotheses, and develop targeted coaching.

Now, merely engaging with more customers and meeting extensively with internal and external contacts does not a successful salesperson make. There are good old fashioned selling traits that need to be part of the psyche. Critical sales competencies (specifically in B2B selling) include some variation of the following:

Planning and delivering value to the customer: Requires deep understanding the customer’s business strategy, initiatives, financial health, product cycle and organization basics. It’s about adopting consultative selling practices to solve for customer’s critical business issues and understanding impact throughout the organization

Building solution and competitive knowledge: Viewed as a true business partner by the customer for bringing innovative and new thinking and trends/knowledge to the table

Positioning and selling correctly: This is an extension of the consultative selling practice and calls for communicating value in financial and other terms that the customer cares about to the right stakeholders

Measuring these sales competencies is a more labor intensive process, and involves questionnaires/surveys/forms, and/or a manager’s keen unbiased observant eye over the course of time. It yields valuable data in assessing skills and gaps.

How to structure enablement?

Adults learn best through experiential learning, by getting their hands dirty/walking the walk. Studies (IBM Research) have shown that adults retain nearly 65% of experiential learning but only 10% of a lecture/video. So, coaching directed to enabling reps to learn rather than teaching them works best. This could take the form of one-one daily/weekly sessions and the manager being present at the customer interaction.

This style of coaching takes time and patience but is one that is necessary for superior results. It becomes critical to deliver targeted coaching so the rep knows where improvements must be made i.e. behavior, style, competency etc. Data in various forms, shapes and formats (quota attainment, conversion rates, pipeline build/activity, time spent with customer/networks, sales competency proficiency) needs to be brought together in a structured manner to maximize the impact of coaching for each rep. One size does not fit all.​One way (there are many paradigms to quadrant reps out) is to use quota and pipeline data to classify reps into four quadrants, and focus on specific coaching methodologies, techniques and behavioral/competency improvement plans for each quadrant.

High Performing Sales Rep: is the one who is beating his quota and actively generating pipeline to fill the funnel. These are the reps you want more of in your organization, the type of eps you want your medium and lower performing reps to aspire to become. These reps are aware and have learned/mastered sales competencies, and are exhibiting all the right behaviors (spending meaningful time with customers, expanding meaningful relationships with internal/external networks etc.) This does not mean that they do not need coaching.

They need more of the right kinds of coaching to keep them engaged and committed to your organization. Work them to plan and develop their career for upward mobility or expanded responsibilities, coach them through elevated risk and high reward projects, and ensure they get visibility with senior level leadership and external partners. Many of these reps also derive satisfaction in grooming and nurturing other sales reps, give them the opportunity.

Needs Development Sales Rep: is the rep that is either beating his quota numbers while not generating high pipeline, or displays low quota attainment while actively generating pipeline.

Case 1: High quota attainment, Low pipelineIt could simply be a case of enforcing CRM discipline. CRM discipline is critical and needed to plan and run the business, understand the customer and plan for knowledge transfer if the rep quits/moves on. Reps should not be allowed to slack on recording opportunities and activities in the system. The discipline needs to be enforced from the top. Coach reps through the importance of recording CRM data, no matter how good they are. Not to mention all the technology that is available today to ensure seamless crm information capture. Use it and enable it!

Beyond CRM, some sales reps like to focus on a few opportunities and put all their energy into closing these deals. They are exhibiting some of the right sales competencies and required customer/network behaviors. But is their quota stretching them enough? The process the rep is following is likely not scalable i.e. if quota increased (market trends, product stickiness etc.) is the rep more likely to miss his elevated numbers? Coach these reps through consciously practicing more of the right selling behaviors to keep the funnel fed. Review competencies and coach to specific opportunities.

Case 2: Low quota attainment, High pipelineThese reps need focused coaching on both competencies and selling behaviors. Reps do not like their every move scrutinized, so use high impact coaching techniques (use available data results/analysis to guide your coaching). Spend 1-1 time with reps and coach them through live situations. Focus on driving more consultative selling techniques and be a true business partner to the customer.

Some of the most successful reps are the ones who can get to No fastest. It is better to get a No upfront than a stressful, dragged-out process that is highly unlikely to end in a sale. Time is money. Coach reps to push the envelope on understanding decision triggers at the customer and keep the process moving forward. Good judgement and acumen are key in transferring energy to fruitful ventures. Coach by using lessons from past experiences and from experiences of other successful and less-successful reps in converting pipeline to a sale.

Needs Performance Management Sales Rep: The rep neither generating pipeline and consequently not meeting quota could either be a new hire, completely checked out and looking for a new role, or needs serious help. The new hire needs the right enablement program. The checked-out rep needs a review of motivations and what the company/manager can provide to keep him engaged (call HR and your boss). Perhaps the company culture/management/industry/product is just not the right fit for the rep and best if everyone moves on.

For the rep that expresses interest in staying on and succeeding, managers need to deploy serious coaching chops. Coaching needs to be intense (frequent doesn’t cut it) and experiential i.e. beyond books/webinars/classes. Its learn by doing in live situations, so managers and other reps need to spend time on the road. Coach to clear, agreed upon targets in specific timeframes.

Changes and confidence building don’t happen overnight, however if there is only modest improvement over a targeted timeframe, consider company mandated performance management plans (though I have seen these to be in place for legal reasons than transforming a poorly performing rep, so don’t hold your breath on this one).

Coaching is hard – time, patience, empathy needed in large doses - but can be extremely gratifying. It’s not the amount of time spent on coaching that counts – less frequent but well prepared, in-depth coaching reaps benefits can work as well. It’s a newer age where data is available to strategically plan approach and content for these sessions. Use it wisely to get your reps from good to great!

CreditsMcKinsey’s research on differences in performance levels in reps can be found in their book on Sales Growth.Ryan Fuller’s articles on Volometrix and high performing sales behaviors are on Harvard Business Review.Content credit for this article also goes to K McMahon (HR), much of which was developed during my tenure at Symantec Corp.

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*This blog will need to be updated once AI technology becomes central to the Sales Planning process.

An important aspect of sales planning is selecting accounts for Account Executives to focus on. Often called “key accounts”, these are the enterprise accounts that sales reps are expected to focus on for sale/upsell/renewal/services. The goal is to become a business partner to the customer (all the way to C-suite), deliver top of the line products/services and in turn sign up a customer for life.

I have seen the range on both account count and selection process – from 1000s of accounts with each rep focused on anywhere from 30-50 accounts, to 50 accounts with each rep focused on 2-3 accounts; from allowing the reps to select the accounts to one entirely mandated by C-suite.

There is no right answer. The account count entirely depends on product, customer and market maturity, and goal of the account naming process. Clearly, better the product-market fit and more mature the customer, lesser 1-1 focus is needed to drive the same $ outcome. If the goal is to name a bunch of accounts to keep in the radar and ensure some touches, 1000s of accounts may be ok. If the goal is to offer premium service and build relationship across the C-suite, that calls for a focused account list. Keep in mind that research/data has shown that, across a range of B2B industries, a rep can handle at most 10-20 customers meaningfully in a year (referring to the $250M+ revenue type enterprise customer). Beyond this count, the interaction isn’t meaningful enough to classify the account as critical.

How should sales and sales operations go about selecting accounts?

One popular way to do this is to pick from Fortune 500 lists, review growth and spending data, peruse market events and trends that necessitate product, look at current relationships/revenue/delivery ability and then carve up the list be territory.

However, there is a more structured approach based on strategic and financial criteria that can drive more focus and returns with the account selection process. How is this done?

Let’s start with financial criteria. The two important parameters here are customer growth and existing customer spend.

A proxy for customer growth is customer spend in the market/industry you are in. For example, if you are selling CRM software, you want to understand how much of IT budget is being spent on sales and marketing software. Now, this isn’t well published data. So, you will have to make assumptions (it’s called reinvestment methodology in the industry) to back out this number from a publicly available topline revenue or count of employees number. For example: Software spend = Revenue * x% (share of revenue reinvested in software); or Software spend per employee * # of employees - can be obtained from 10K/Q if company is public. Infrastructure software spend = y%* Software spend (y% varies by industry). Sales and Marketing software spend = z% * infrastructure software spend (z% varies by industry). This sales and marketing software spend can be applied as proxy for customer growth.

Existing customer spend is average bookings/billings/revenue over the past 2-3 years (consider at global/local level) based on goals of your account program.

​ Plotting this data on a 3x3 matrix gives us a path to classifying accounts:

At the top right corner are accounts that have high growth and are already strong customers. These are the cream of your account list. Ensure singular focus to grow revenue/upsell/service and protect renewals

Accounts that are growing but haven’t signed up for your product are classic whitespace – you need hunters to go after these accounts. On the flip side, you have customers that are not growing but are your top customers. If your sales strategy calls for keeping the relationship with these accounts, farmers need to ensure renewal.

Other accounts that have some spending potential and/or current bookings/revenue are likely better handled through the channel.

Customer with low growth potential and low current spend are a time suck.

This is a good start to building a focused account list. To finalize the list, some strategic criteria need to be applied. Sales reps and corporate strategy teams are an excellent source of information here. Strategic criteria include:

Customer fit: Trends and customer characteristics that are a good fit for your product ex: you sell security and customer had a recent breach.

Company fit: Customer meets the company target profile, c-suite relationships already exist etc. ex: medium enterprise $10-50M revenue may not really be a good fit for company selling products designed for large enterprises.

Now, the process, as structured as it is, is not easy to implement. Primary reason is that the data needed to apply criteria is not clean. External calculated data is based on assumptions and industry and company standards are not easy to come by. Companies buy lists but this gets expensive, however now there are many powerful tools (ex: Clearbit) available to access high quality company/contact statistics.

The less concrete the data, the faster sales goes back to traditional ways of selecting accounts. The same goes for customer bookings/revenue data. It is imperative to get this right – considering variations in customer names, parent child relationships etc. The cleaner the data, the more useful the output.​A win-win framework..

​In the absence of super clean data is to employ an 80/20 principle to selection criteria i.e. 80% of the account list is built using a modified/less rigorous framework and 20% is left to the discretion of sales based on their market/customer knowledge/experience. The less accurate your data is, the higher you need to go from 20% to partner with sales effectively.

​The framework can also be modified to a 2x2 matrix. The premise is the same – mapping growth against existing install base. But instead of hard cut off’s you segregate quadrants based on an 80/20 rule. For ex: when looking at bookings the quadrants on the right consist of customers that account for 80% of the total bookings. The left quadrants are everyone else. The above process leads to a more reasonable conversation with sales reps on selecting accounts.

CreditsContent credit also goes to Hoda Mehr who was my partner in all things Sales Operations, till she embarked on the startup road in FinTech. Content was developed during our tenure at Symantec Corp.

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Career transitions are hard. Forced firings, voluntary exits and directional divergences all come with their own challenges and required degrees of resilience. Even changes that begin full of hope and optimism often meander into the unknown and downright terrifying. It is not uncommon to weather the gamut of emotions that is associated with the grief cycle as one goes through a career change.

Mentees and myself have all had the opportunity to go through what can be described as a profound learning experience. The career change experience is also a friends and family special, with intimate details laid bare for scrutiny and words of encouragement. How the phoenix rises from the ashes is a direct correlation to will of the self and power of what I refer to as the Fellowship.

Success is not only about bringing your A game and your best self to the party. Absolutely! That is a must. But there is more, that matters more. Advice, lecture and counsel alike, from motivational authors to medium posts extol “if you want it and believe it, you can have it”.

Perhaps that’s true for acing your SATs, and somewhat true for getting in shape but it couldn’t be further from practical when making a career transition or for that matter succeeding in life. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans discuss this concept in their seminal book on “Designing your Life”, where they discuss the right way to find a job and the power of community in transforming your life. They nailed it!

What's the lesson?

I learnt my lesson later in life than I needed to. My parents raised me to believe I could achieve anything I want if I worked hard and never gave up. So, I studied..really hard! Genetic prewiring made the learning easier and praise and rewards kept me going. Valedictorian, university topper, near perfect scores in SAT, GRE and GMAT, job offers with top pay and at choice employers, and success in the workplace.

But I wanted to discover more, understand what my life path was, what my work/career path should be. So, I spent time at the drawing board, reading, talking to a little circle of trusted advisors and brainstorming solutions. Months later, nothing. Zip. Nada. I was no further along to an answer than where I had started. Sure, I had a lot more knowledge and hence choices but a clear path forward? Nope!

It is relatively easy to follow a trodden path and re-engineer the criteria for success that is defined on generic terms but the process does not hold ground in the exercise of building anything meaningful. At first I attributed the lackluster performance to fading gumption. Was it mid-life crisis? Though I hadn’t quite reached mid-life and it wasn’t quite a crisis. (It was a good excuse to get a yellow corvette stingray but financial prudence beckoned)​Right counsel made the answer quite apparent. You need to surround yourself with the right types of good people (your Fellowship) to help you traverse the path and find your answers. And it isn’t a one-time static exercise in the type or choice of companions, it’s a fluid process as you learn more and discover more about yourself and the constantly changing world.

Who can help?

Here’s the Fellowship that’s helpful for a career transition (in no specific order of importance, of course you come first):

You: Bring your best self and commit to the process. Before embarking on the quest to find the next job or new job, forced or not, it is critical to take care of oneself – physically, mentally, spiritually. Openness to ideas, possibilities and a willingness to stay the course are needed. A big truth is that you can’t fake this process and there are no shortcuts. You really must want to discover and be interested in others to reciprocate.

Spouse/Family: Apart from needing all their encouragement and support to keep you going, even on the days the clouds never seem to break for the sun, you need to inform your family so they can provide you the most non-judgmental counsel you can receive. Plus, you can plan for any adjustments and compromises, both parties will need to make, sooner which is always less stressful.

Books & Blogs: Find time to read anywhere and everywhere – in the passenger seat, on the toilet seat, when the kids are asleep. There is incredible learning in another’s wisdom. Well regarded folks like Bill Gates and Marc Cuban all post book reviews and book lists online. If these books worked for them, they can work for you. Read books about what you want to work on/in ex: consulting, operations, finance. They will show you a world that will take you a very long time to discover on your own. Read blogs, listen to blogs – james altucher can really begin to feel like your best friend. Good blogs do a wonderful job of giving you hope and keeping your resilience fresh.

Friends/Team: (the sort who counsel and perhaps kick your behind into action when needed): You could have one friend or many. This is the person who supports you, gives you guidance and listens. They may be in the same field of work as you and/or the same industry (or not). They hear you out and help you reflect, help you get clarity on thoughts and musings, so that you can decide and move forward.

Professional career counselor: I have found professional career counselors helpful. Would I pay for one? Likely not. But if your company is paying for one either during or post-employment, by all means, talk to one. They can offer unbiased and professional feedback on your resume and LinkedIn profile. They often host useful workshops on entering a new field or function, and the good ones offer a good listening ear.

Coach aka Mentor: Even if you never planning on leaving your job or moving up the ladder, you still need a coach. Someone who has had the experience of taking a 360 degree view at a problem. They come at your queries at angles that guide you to clarity. They have seen people tread the path you intend to and will draw on that to get you to widen your lenses of consideration. A coach could be your prior manager or a professional or a senior executive who admires your grit and willingness and drive and wants to help you. You likely remind them of their younger self, and they would love to hold out the helping hand that someone once held for them. They are closer and more accessible than you think, and you have likely even kept the relationship going. If not, get started now. And, find multiple mentors.

Functional/Technical experts/ Ones who have gone the path before: If you know where you are headed (title/function/company/industry), talk to the folks who have been there, done that. Meetup groups and workshops are great places to talk to them if that’s your scene. If not, ask for someone to refer you or reach out directly 1-1 to learn about their journey. It helps to really figure out if what they do is what’s right for you to pursue. Don’t discount your alumni network – you already have common ground for a conversation. Talk to as many people as you can to get an objective view.

Connectors: It’s truly amazing how nice people are. 80% of people do really want to help. For the other 20%, sometimes life gets in the way and they need to deal with stuff (it’s nothing personal). Connectors have built up their network over time and out of necessity (ex: running an agency, VC) Try to make your way to one through a referral, build rapport and ask them to connect you to many others who would be helpful for you to learn from. The magic often unfolds as conversations take people on ways they never considered before.

Recruiters: Reach out actively to recruiters. It doesn’t hurt. While its always better and easier to find yourself squarely in the tracks of the hiring manager’s train, recruiters often know of roles that are yet to be advertised and can connect you to more people.

The team is fluid and depends on the type and urgency of the transition you are looking to make. If circumstances call for a quick change, perhaps it is more of the connectors you want to focus on connecting to. If it’s a discovery process, you need people from all buckets. Some people may do dual roles – a coach can also be an excellent connector and that’s a bonus.

Get Ready...

The list and process may seem daunting. It is. With everything else to manage, where is the time to go find all these people and how to go about this process? Patience is key. This is not an overnight fix.

This isn’t about going to small or large events and painting the room red aka networking (though if you can do that, kudos! Most networking events left me feeling like wallpaper.) I say, start small. Look at your immediate circle, your co-workers, friends, managers. Who can play which role? Who can connect you to someone in another role – LinkedIn is your best friend for stalking here. Ask one to connect to one.

A close friend met 96 people in six months, and she is an introvert. I believe if she can, I can and we all can. Why wait for the pink slip to arrive? Start today and build slowly. Convert “busy time” at work to “build time”, so that you can engineer your own career transition. It is an active process requiring mindfulness.

It’s a lot of coffee and a lot of driving. So, buckle up! It’s a change in traditional approach to managing a transition where our first instinct is to shut the doors, curl into a ball (eat ice-cream) and then work hard on aspects we can fully control. That approach may work but it’s not guaranteed to be a fulfilling process or bring the best outcomes. Why not surround yourself with the right people to help and guide you in the journey?

On the occasions that I have observed people apply this approach not just during career transitions but also on an everyday basis, results do take a bit longer to achieve. But those results are bigger, better and bolder, concocted from the collective wisdom of so many well-wishers. As with all collective undertakings, pay the favor back and pay the support forward, to everyone who helped and to everyone who needs help.

CreditsYou can find Dave Evans and Bill Burnett’s book here. Here is also an insanely good article on becoming insanely well-connected.

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​I bought Sheryl Sandberg’s groundbreaking book “Lean In” the day it was released. I devoured every word, then read it again. Then I read Goodreads reviews and blogs and articles on the book. As you can tell, I care a whole lot about my career and leaning in. Sheryl Sandberg is an inspiration.

She got so many things right in the book – the difficulty with managing a career and a home, the statistics on men leading the world, the misalignment in women’s pay, the jungle gym path to the top, the need for mentors and advocates, the imposter syndrome and women holding themselves back and what a better world it would be with a 50-50 split in household and childrearing duties. I am encouraging, no making, my daughter read the book as soon as she can string words together.

There was so much buzz around her and the book. She was invited by the CEO of my former company to chair an onsite event, following which he promised to encourage and support women. A year later, there were still no women on his immediate staff or changes in the Board. Her visit also got a lot of discussion going, over lunch and coffee, at middle management level on what’s to be done. Some saw the yellow brick road, some scoffed and the rest went home to fix dinner.

It is much more than leaning in....

I learnt this from first-hand experience. Making the transition into senior management was incredibly hard. Not just for me, but for multiple mentors, coaches and friends who were female. Forget leaning in, these women were all diving into their careers. Yet, most had run through the gamut of emotions from hope to frustration, clarity to confusion, demanding to cajoling their managers as they perilously tiptoed their way through the process. My own experience was one for the books – agree to a plan, over deliver on results, sponsorship from executives and yet it needed more conversations till I got the promotion I richly deserved. Why was it so incredibly hard?

A friend and I looked at research from McKinsey’s Women Matter and Centered Leadership projects, Stanford’s Clayman Institute research and Joan Williams’ brilliant book on “What Works for Women at Work”, to understand what was the clear path to women’s career success i.e. reaching upper levels of management. Below are our learnings and what women can and need to do beyond leaning in.

At the outset, promotions need three aspects of alignment between the candidate and the promoting manager. For women, it’s an alignment of achievement levels around:

Skills i.e. relevant technical capabilities.

Process i.e. lean-in and play the game. (everything Sheryl Sandberg discusses in her book)

Style i.e. emulation of leadership attributes.

Skills and Process are perhaps more under the candidate’s control than Style. Leadership is nebulous and left to the observer’s perception. To one, a manager coaching their reports is leadership, to another that’s not boardroom material. To one, barking orders all day long to get reports to deliver faster and better is leadership, to another that’s tyranny.

What did the research find?

All the mentioned research points to a difference in leadership style and expectations contributing to the main barrier for a woman’s progress. The inequality is only compounded by proven barriers and biases that hold women from advancing their careers.

The McKinsey research calls out four factors holding women back:​

Structural obstacles, be it a lack of access to informal networks, lack of female role models higher up or lack of sponsors to provide opportunities.

Embedded institutional mindsets, a culture that does not support desire and lack of management support to prevent women from failing hard.

Lifestyle issues. But contrary to conventional wisdom, 50% of fathers with one child and 55% of women without children say they will not accept a new job that reduces work/life balance.

Clayman research findings were similar. They found that merely adopting male leadership behaviors will not work because distinct patterns of gender bias exist in the workplace. These take the form of:

Prove it Again, where women need to prove themselves repeatedly. Men are promoted on potential and women on performance/competence – again and again. There is less room for error and mistakes are noticed more.

The Tightrope which involves walking the line between being liked but not respected or respected but not liked. (Many women use male leadership behaviors to earn respect. Others do office “housework” to be liked)

Maternal Wall, where women have their competence and commitment questioned after becoming a mother and managers hold back additional responsibility to be considerate.

Tug of War where there is palpable tension among women based on different styles of navigating bias in the workplace. Women clash on “authoritative” and “approachable” strategies and competing for fewer spots.

So, what’s the solution?

McKinsey and Clayman contend it is twofold:

Companies and managers need to change their biases and mindsets to enable women to rise to the top. Change needs to start from the top and emulated. Workshops and awareness campaigns and sponsorship programs are a must to start to move this behemoth elephant out of the room. This is easier said than done and the proof is in the pudding.

Women need to actively pursue strategies to overcome bias. Women need to form a posse and team up with people to publicly celebrate successes, use a mix of “masculine” and “feminine” traits to be assertive and approachable as needed, be strategic about office housework and learning to say No, being explicit about career goals and choices post maternity, and having crucial conversations with “enemies” - call the bad behavior out, drop the pugilist glove, find common ground and propose mutual support.

Now, back to title of this post...

Here is a true story: Alexa, Bella and Max were mid-level managers working on a high stakes project. The VP trusted all three to deliver based on their technical skills and camaraderie. The project took long hours and a few weeks to complete, with quick check-ins by the VP every two weeks. The VP was a busy man, with revenue gods to glorify and expense demons to slay. The final walkthrough was scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon. Alexa, Bella and Max were very well prepared. They were going to nail this!

At the start of the meeting, the VP rushed in saying that the EVP of the division had scheduled a department review for later that afternoon. The EVP was arriving in person in an hour.

The VPs secretary was running helter-skelter in a spirited effort to tame logistics. Could one of the three help for a few minutes? Alexa jumped up. She assumed the review would be pushed out. She agreed to collect the cupcakes. Bella also assumed that the review would be pushed out and volunteered to make 25 copies of the VPs presentation at the new copier installed in the office room. Max stayed silent and watched as the women scurried out of the room. Now what were Max and the VP supposed to do for 45mts? They discussed the project results, a summary of which was due to the EVP in a few hours.

The project was an enormous success. The results blew the EVPs expectations and all three managers came in for heartfelt praise from the VP.

Three months later the annual review cycle kicked in. As usual, limited budget this and limited budget that. Only one of the three managers could be promoted.

Who do you think got promoted?

CreditsCredit goes to Hoda Mehr for jointly contributing to content development for this post. You can find Joan Williams book here. McKinsey’s research on the topic can be found here. Clayman institute research is available here.

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By July 2016, I had given up. I was at my wits end as to how to manage my time better. Sure, I read blogs and articles about time management. There is definite wisdom in them (some of the proffered guidance is frankly table stakes).

But, these articles were mostly written for men, or for women without children, or for women with children and either a village or a fat wallet to buy that village. I was and am not in any of those buckets – currently single earning household in one of the costliest zipcodes in the country, two young kids and closest family living 1000s of miles away. This is our family’s choice to avoid snow and to ascend the technology ladder (hope springs eternal).

Lesson of the day, week, month and year, from these articles, is to ruthlessly prioritize and then prioritize some more. Children, Sleep and Work are my priorities. Where do I begin to swing the sword?.

Where is the time going?​I love the age my kids are at – 4 and 1. They are cherubic and healthy (yes, I realize how lucky I am!). Tantrums happen but they are both amenable to discipline …ahem! coaching. But they don’t do well without nurture and care. They are like the plant that is thriving, ignore it a tad bit and once it starts drooping/wilting, all the sunlight and water and care in the world won’t bring it back to its former glory.

Ah, Sleep! If someone asked me what my favorite hobby was, I would have said “sleep” except I don’t think it can be classified that way. I found myself giddy with excitement when Arianna Huffington gave her TED talk on why we should be sleeping our way to the top. I could not agree more!

I love all things work, it brings me happiness and fulfillment to enable growth – of a business, division and people. Giving it up, would be akin to giving up my identity. Rising the career ladder and increasing your sphere of influence does not come without investing time.

But there is so much more to get done – where is the time for hobbies? Hiking? Painting? Reading? Going to the gym? What about cooking? Grocery shopping? Getting ready? Driving? House-Cleaning? Laundry? Watching TV? Movies? Family time? Spouse time? Friend time?

I multi-tasked: Managing work calls and watching my children. Result: Gave the kids an ipad to keep them quiet. That wilting thing I referred to – it’s very real. It comes with glazed eyes of a toddler and alarming levels of dwindling empathy and patience from adults and toddlers alike. ​I outsourced: All the cleaning and housework was already outsourced. Outsourced the cooking – figured ordering from restaurants and take and bake pizza would ruin the health coefficient. Outsourced grocery shopping – didn’t work. Delivery was too expensive or I never received the quality of service I expected.

I cut out nearly all driving: Gave up on buying a house, and rented within 5 miles of work. ​I gave up TV – literally cut the cable.

Yet, I was still searching for time.

So, what's to be done?

And then between one article and one meeting with my mentor/coach at work, I sort of found an answer. Nope there’s no village or the extra money to afford a village. Husband is still very busy and travels (he does help when he can) and like most households I am responsible for 70% child care, and no I didn’t find any silver bullets. But I am more content than earlier.

1. Expand the WindowOne of the best articles I have read on actively managing your time is based on findings from Laura Vanderkam’s Mosaic Project. She talks about altering the target time management window to a week of 168 hours as opposed to a day of 24 hours, and then keeping track of time. This was a radical mindset shift. Sure, I planned both work and home life for the week Sunday evenings, but I moved away from believing that there were a few “must-do’s” every single day. I gave myself permission to take longer to get things done.

I was spending 27% of my week with my children – eat, play and sleep included, 30% at work, and 30% for nighttime zzzz’s, none of which I wanted to alter. That left 13% or 23hrs in a week to get a whole host of mundane to wishful things done. It was mind boggling to see it laid bare. 23hrs is not a lot of time – try saying that to the patient who has a day to live (though we should all be living like it’s our last but let’s get practical).

After the changes, (outsourcing what I could afford to in the cooking and cleaning department), I had a window of 2-3 hours where I could get one wishful activity done and done well and done alone (glorious “me” time). I picked one activity a week and rotated or sometimes even did it twice in a row. Be it hiking, painting, reading, an afternoon nap on the weekend – it finally felt like I wasn’t ignoring complete facets of my life. I also knew I had only one shot at it that week so I gave the activity my all. Expanding the window beyond a week to three months, I had read two fantastic books, completed a 16x20canvas, attended a long family lunch, watched a movie, went on a hike, went to happy hour and went to dinner with my husband. I felt like I got a big part of my “pre-kids” life back!

2. Hustle I bought 7 clocks and stuck one in every room, bathrooms and laundry room included. Watching time tick by is a powerful motivator to get efficient. I worked in 15minute chunks most times – one of my kids would invariably interrupt me in 15mts. But for those 15mts, I learned to fully focus. (even ignored one kid falling off the high chair, and a fire alarm…ok I am joking…almost joking) But there is no more browsing facebook, no more reaching for the phone to make/take calls or check email, no more foraging for snacks, no more walking away to try on the dress purchased last week, when working on a task. I try to stick to the task till it is completed even if it was in 15 minute bursts. And it worked, I was spending less time on the same things – dinner took only 40mts to put together. It took a little getting used to but like all unpleasant habits, distraction can be tamed!

3. Single-taskI stopped multi-tasking. I found that it doesn’t work for me. I contend that you can only multitask a mindful activity with a muscle memory activity ex: listening to a podcast and doing the dishes. Anything else is a no-go. Multitasking usually resulted in tasks half done or took longer to correct. I “single-tasked” where I was multitasking with my kids before. No more reading the kindle when putting the kid to sleep, no more taking calls when kids were playing, no more watching a movie with my husband and replying to emails. Humans, young and old like mindful attention. That is time well spent.

4. Work LessYes, being seen strategically at work, working remote, working split shifts and over the weekend are all necessary. But this often keeps you in the present and doesn’t set you up for the future – what do I mean? To get ahead its mostly about whether people like you and are willing to give you a chance.

There’s various things that go into why people like you – perhaps you bring some value to them, perhaps you have a dynamic personality, perhaps you have superior skills. No one is born with skills ready to rule the world. That means, we must invest time (and energy, money, patience, willpower etc.) to develop it. If you don’t want to steal time from sleep and kids, you are only left with the time at work to make improvements that will propel your career further. So, I learnt to give myself permission to invest in my career at work.

I love Google’s 80:20 concept, spend 80% of your time on designated work, 20% on other work. I consider reading relevant blogs/websites/articles/books, attending workshops/events/happy hours, meeting/socializing with folks at lunch all 20% work that I now do in my regular work day. It is a conscious action. Perhaps some projects take longer but I was mostly able to carve the time out just by getting more efficient with meetings and spending less time surfing between calls/meetings. I am convinced I am going to attribute 80% of my career progress to this 20% time.

5. Sacrifice When it comes to time management I think sacrifice plays as big a role as prioritize does. Prioritize fools you into thinking that there is a sliver of hope to get everything done. Sacrifice jolts you into picking the few things that will eventually get done. I say, more power to sacrifice.

I gave up TV, all of it. I have watched every episode of the L&O franchise - Law and Order/SVU/Criminal Intent. Not once, not twice but three times. I will even cop to watching a few seasons of KUWTK. I grew up watching TV with meals. I gave it all up. Zip, nada. Just couldn’t fit it in the 13hrs I had left in the week and I didn’t want my kids picking it up either.

I don’t shop for clothes or jewelry. No more walking the mall floors to window shop or browsing designer sites or fashion magazines for the latest. I have a staple of 3-4 clothes per event type (work, birthday party, indian event etc.) and that’s all I choose from. Hard to adjust to, but I’ve learned to move on from thinking about what might be on Vogue’s cover.

I don’t think there are any shortcuts – sacrifice so you have less to prioritize!

What’s the verdict?

I still spend 80-85% of my time on kids, work and sleep. But no more crazy pills. I seem to be able to do more. Now that I am acutely aware of the 15-20% leftover time, I have forced myself to change my mindset and get productive.​A coach once told me to think about things that we want to spend time on as big diamonds we collect from a jar of gems. Diamonds may be your best friend today but pearls could take their place tomorrow. For some, its work and friends that are diamonds, and hobbies become pearls. For others, diamonds are kids and work. The important thing is that this isn’t static. Kids grow up and move out – perhaps then you hold on to your hobbies and friends more. You should give yourself permission to enjoy the few things you care about at this moment.

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